Sofia the First

Wow! I made some Sofia the First cupcakes recently and had it posted on my Facebook page. Overnight, the post reach surpassed all my previous posting with a healthy number of likes and kind comments. Thanks so much guys. The petite princess in purple offered so many wonderful design elements  to work on that it was simple pleasure to make.

This also made me realised how many of you actually like Sofia the First! I know her because it's on Disney Jr. and it's one of few princess cartoons my boys would watch, if not the only. It is also easy to like Sofia, she's kind and spirited but not cloyingly sweet, just enough to make some awesome cupcakes. Heh.

Here are a few emblems that brings out the essence of Princess Sophia...

Her purple amulet

Clover pattern on her dress

Every princess needs a tiara

It's an extremely purply affair, a sort of powdery lavender that is most fitting for Disney's latest bug eyed princess. Here's Sofia herself in cupcake (literally).

Sofia the First 

I made little printouts of Sofia, had them cut out and mounted on toothpicks, then stuck it atop the cupcake and used the fondant ruffle technique for the skirt. Little round discs of fondant were ruffled piece by piece with a ball tool - something I have to confess that's strangely therapeutic to do - and arranged it all around each cupcake.

HRH Cupcakes

I've had wonderful feedback and was told Mummy H who ordered this was totally pleased as was the birthday girl. From the response I've been getting all around, I think Sofia has just gained a few more fans.

Laylapalooza

If there is one thing from my misguided youth that I regret, it is that I didn't go to music festivals like Glastonbury, Coachella and the likes while I could still weather the elements, large crazy crowds and budget youth hostels.

I only went as far as Big Day Out in Melbourne and though I did get to see The Strokes, The Darkness, Jet and got on stage with The Flaming Lips, in truth, it wasn't quite Glastonbury.

It does seem like that window has closed for me, but my friend Eve who runs the awesome motherhood blog thebottomsupblog.com gave me the opportunity to remember those heady days and showed how as young mothers now, it is still possible to have a rocking party!

Eve threw her daughter Layla a super awesome Rock n Roll theme party, complete with posters, props, memorabillia and a band where her friends can bring a song (instead of a toy/gift) and perform it! I don't think it gets any cooler than this for a 8-year-old! 

So where I came in was to provide cupcakes in line with the colour scheme and theme. I made little fondant electric guitars as toppers and stencils of their favourite bands which include AC/DC, The Beatles, Ramones, Metallica, Nirvana, RHCP, GnR...

I was thinking real hard how to transfer the band logo without resorting to printing it on sugar paper and realised there is no other way but to print it and penknife it out into a stencil. Then I dusted edible black dusting powder and voilà, a decent transfer that actually looks like it was spray painted on!

Rawk on!

Happy Birthday Layla

Now if you want to see the rest of the party and how Eve had put it together so wonderfully, do check it out at http://thebottomsupblog.com/laylapalooza-2014/

The Princess Project

My baking soul mate is in town! Dawn is back for the summer school holidays and although she's declared that she's on a baking break, it didn't stop her from galavanting with me to Phoon Huat, Bake It Yourself and Art Friend for supplies. And of course, we baked!

We took on an order together - the first official collaboration. It's a princess cake that includes the full works - ruffles, tiara, bows, flowers and it's got to be pink pink pink! We spent 2 full days together planning, baking and decorating while the kids watched copious amount of TV (we had our hands full!) and ate levelled out cake!                  

I baked my trusty moist chocolate for a two-tier cake with ganache filling. Dawn planned the cake design and showed me how to make fondant ruffles - a repetitively therapeutic thing to do on any given afternoon. We moulded fondant in many shades of pink for the ombre ruffles and had to resist introducing some other complementing colours because the recipient insisted on a pink cake. In the end we used some white for contrast, we just had to.

Here are some scenes from the making of...

The ball tool is essential for ruffles

Here's the ombre skirting

Stacking the pinks

Dawn putting in the finer details

Dawn had made the pretty tiara with gum paste and it sat wonderful atop the cake, making it fit for a princess birthday celebration. When we finally added in the final details, I couldn't imagine how anyone could bear cutting into this cake. It is definitely my most professional-looking cake to date.

The Princess

Happy Birthday Kara

Dawn bakes in Shanghai. If you'd like to follow her amazing cakes, check it out here - Cakes from D'Heart

Madison's Giraffe

Remember how in older housing estates you always had a neighbourhood bakery you can count on for cakes for all occasions, or a sweet treat whenever... well, I've become that - the friendly neighbourhood baker.

My neighbour in the opposite block has the easy convenience of ordering and picking cakes up from me. She can literally gesture from her window, across the swimming pool, to me for another red velvet cake please. So when her daughter's 3rd birthday came round, she had yet another excuse for a cake from her neighbourhood baker.

Mummy D is hooked on my red velvet. She's also been meaning to try my rainbow cake but the red velvet always get in the way. So for her daughter's birthday, it's finally the rainbow cake! Her only design requirement - must have M's favourite animal, the giraffe!

While I love colourful children's cake with all sorts of fun trimmings and embellishment, I think there is nothing classier than a minimal design cake that focuses on one or two elements. So here's what I came up with...

Less is More

A rainbow that is neatly covered in soft pink fondant and simple trimming that ends with a fondant bow. I made a little fondant giraffe with blushing cheeks and topped the cake of with a name tag for the birthday girl. You really don't need anything more than a candle to this. Besides, you can let the colours inside do all the wow-ing!

Happy Birthday Maddie

Thank God for Little Girls

My little niece got baptised last weekend. God bless the little cutie. One of the things her mummy (my sister) got excited about was the party that we'd have after the baptism. Any excuse for beers, wine and finger foods on a Sunday! And of course reason for a cake.

My family is my biggest fan :) They love my rainbow cake and don't seem to tire of it at any occasion that calls for a cake. This time round, my sister wanted a two-tier cake with alternating layers of pastel pink and green. I'm so glad she has a daughter... Baby C is my excuse for making sweet-looking cakes and party deco that's unabashedly pink!

So what's the deco norm for baptism cakes? There's typical ones featuring the cross, simple ones that denote the date of baptism and it's usually clean and classic designs, but there's really no convention.

So here's what Baby C got...

Pastel ballons floating skywards

Happy Baptism Clare

It was also my sister's birthday so this called for a two-tier cake!

Happy Birthday Sis

As usual, I didn't take a pic of the cut cake but the balloons matched the layers inside. This cake is also the first time I tried a buttermilk recipe. It's a wonderfully moist cake that's springy and full of flavour. It's my favourite recipe now, so if you order a rainbow cake from now on, you'll get the buttermilk recipe cake ; )

True Blue Girl

When I got the order for a Winx Club cake, I didn't think twice about getting a topper doll of the leggy magical fairy with pretty wings. Good thing too my friend who ordered the cake for her daughter's 7th birthday thought the same. The only requirement was for the colour theme to be turquoise and blue - birthday girl's favourite colour (she's got good taste!).

At this point, I have to share my extreme weakness for the colour turquoise, specifically a shade of blue that is softly aqua, deep ocean teal, robin egg blue, and of course there's the hue from Tiffany & Co. That colour does something to me, I have such a deep affection, I'm drawn to it like moth to a light (just ask the hubby, he has lost count of the blue boxes given over the years). I couldn't wait to cover this cake and put in the details.

How pretty is that blue!

Then things got ambitious.

My baker friend Dawn is back from Shanghai for the CNY holidays and I told her about the Winx cake I was making. Instantly, she generously offered her time and kind help so I skipped the idea of a topper and decided to go with fondant figurine of the character Bloom.

She offered so many great tips for moulding figurines and the tools that are essential for the job. I don't have much experience making figurines, mine tend to be the cherubic cartoon type so I was eager to learn. She was going to send me a step-by-step on developing the face, torso, arms, legs and hair, then tragedy struck! Instead of drying out overnight, our humidity got to the fairy figurine and she was a melty mess :( Dawn is used to working in drier, cooler climate and didn't anticipate that this weather just won't do fondant any favours. Someone tugboat this country up north already!

What it could have been... sigh

Dawn was devastated, I felt really bad for all her wasted effort. So it was back to a topper doll. There weren't any actual Winx cake toppers so I went out and bought Bloom, the Winx doll. With that sorted (and no chance of melting), I focused on decorating the cake.

The flowers

The butterflies

Curls and swirls of girliness

When it was all done, I was totally in love. It is definitely one of my most favourite cakes. I had the Bloom doll hold on to a scalloped cutout for the birthday girl's name. 

All's well that ends well ; )

Happy Birthday Aeryn 

Hello Kitty #1 (and counting)

How do you love Hello Kitty? Let me count the ways...

I've made a few Hello Kitty cakes last year and I am so sure she will be in my lineup again this year that I invested in some more Hello Kitty bakeware and cutters!

My first Hello Kitty cake for 2013 is a pink and pretty affair. A friend referred a mummy to me who wanted a Kitty cake she saw online and asked if I could replicate it. Doing a copy is both easy and hard to do... it's simple since you don't really have to think much about the design as it is there for you, but it also means if you do a poor replica, it's easy to make a comparison.

Well, I set out to follow the colours and details as closely as I could but at some point, I made some variations (I just can't help it!) But thank goodness, it's well received ; )

Here's what's involved...

Round cake with a pink bow

Lots of little sparkly flowers

Hello Kitty

And here's the finished product for a birthday girl who shares her birthday with her grandma.

Happy Birthday Tata

And Happy Birthday Grandma

For those of you who may be curious to see the cake that this design is based on, click here for a peek ; )

Castles for Princesses

I've always looked at princess castle cakes and thought to myself - That is just way too difficult! There's simply too many details and construction required to make a home fit for a princess. So you can imagine my trepidation when I was contacted for a princess castle cake.

A mummy who found me online wanted a rainbow cake for her daughter with a princess castle theme. It's a busy week (and month) for me so I told her honestly that I just didn't have the bandwidth to take on the bake job. However, I couldn't bear disappointing anyone especially since she was looking forward to a rainbow cake, so I suggested baking just the round cake with a simple design and she can find her daughter's favourite princess and castle toppers, which I'm sure would look perfect. I was glad she took up the idea coz I knew the toppers would do more justice than my many hours trying to make this work.

As luck would have it, the shops ran out of the castle toppers.

Desperately-seeking-castle mummy contacted me and asked if there was any way at all that I could craft two castles to add to the cake. She managed to get the princess toppers but it wouldn't be the same without the castles. She even sent me resource links and images for ideas on how to craft the castles! I have to admit, my interest was definitely piqued but more importantly, I couldn't possibly leave her stranded! Though it's a crazy period now leading up to Christmas, I found myself looking at youtube  for how to make a castle cake (and there are plenty!)

While looking at how I could do this, I found a website on how to coat the ice cream cones for the castle. The baker had a wonderful description of how she went about building her castle cake, it's a great one - check it out here. I like how she coated the cones with royal icing and rolled it in disco dust! And that's just what I did...

Pink Peaks

The royal icing dried smooth and hard which made it easy to handle for construction. And I love that pink (Americolor Soft Pink). It was a day of just playing with ice cream cones. These inverted cones easily fitted into the fat wafer cones you get with Macdonald's soft-serve ice cream, once that is done, you'll already get the basic idea of a castle tower.

Castle Cones

I made five castles with graduating heights to surround the back of the cake. To do that, I looked around my larder and found some wafer biscuits, had them cut to size and stacked to the height I wanted.

Tall, taller, tallest

I just wish I had more time to embellish the towers, as you can see the cones do look a bit naked at the bottom. I made it up by pipping some 'green grass' and sprinkled some confetti flowers to make it look like flower bushes. Another thing I did was put little flags at the top of the tower cone, it's a small detail that didn't require a lot of work but added to the look visually. Simply cut out some art paper into triangles and stick it down with some fondant.

Tower 1

Latest castle development

I had the cake delivered to the school where little Jmie was going to celebrate her 2nd birthday with her classmates. Her mummy met me to assemble the princesses on the cake for the finishing touch. I was told Aeriel the mermaid princess is her favourite, so naturally she got the main spot on the cake.

Sitting pretty

Happy Birthday Jmie

While I came through for Jmie and mummy with the castles, at the same time, I have them to thank for pushing me to overcome this mental block for castle cakes. I've learnt a lot making this cake and wouldn't mind doing it all over again.

Epic Cake!

I took on an ambitious order and think I may have made 'The Cake' to date.

It was so nice to hear from an old school mate - she found out that I had this cake venture so she contacted me for a series of cakes for her daughters. Doesn't seem that long ago we were a couple of blue-uniformed schoolgirls running around CHIJ ; )

My friend's daughter celebrates her 5th birthday this month and I had the pleasure of baking her a My Little Pony cake! I remember the pastel-coloured ponies from my own childhood and I absolutely love the flowers, rainbows and hearts that surrounded the ponies. I went on to plan a cake that I would have loved for myself when I was 5 years old.

The birthday girl wanted Pinke Pie, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash on the cake. She also wanted flowers, hearts and ribbons. I don't' have daughters, my two sons want trains, trains and trains. So you can imagine my excitement at making this cake.

I quickly got to work on the embellishments.
First the flowers...

Little pansies in colours of the rainbow

Then the rainbow, hearts and bow...

Hearts are fun to make

Next comes the main feature... Pinkie Pie! In the days leading up to Pinkie Pie, I had actually gone to a party supply shop and found My Little Pony cake toppers! They were beautiful so I bought them and looked at them long and hard. There was no way I could have done a 3D pony with fondant or gum paste that would come close to the toppers. So I relented and decided to use toppers (my friends all say - "There's no shame in it!"). Still I could not accept not making a pony with fondant. So I decided to make Pinkie Pie myself. To differentiate from the toy toppers, I decided to make her 2D but work on her mane so it looks like it's blowing in the wind.

Pinkie Pie

I had her set on the top tier as the main feature...

Riding on a chocolate cake

Looking at this picture now, I kinda like the simplicity of Pinkie Pie on a plain fondant covered cake. But this was going to be my epic cake, so this is really just the start of putting it all together.

Rainbow delight 

The bottom tier is set on a plush buttercream green grass field dotted with flowers where Little Ponies run free. A pretty fondant rainbow brightens the design and adds extra sweetness.

Here's the complete stack. Notice the hearts on the cake, they stand out instead of lie flat on the cake. I got around to using gum paste and managed to make these hearts. They are great coz they harden up much better than fondant and could be used without losing its shape.

My Little Pony Paradise

Happy Birthday Aeriel

Hello Kitty!

I knew it was a matter of time before the famous Japanese bobtail kitty cat finds me and my baking adventures. A friend recommended a mummy to me for a heart-shaped banana cake with Hello Kitty on it. The cake is meant for her little girl's birthday celebration in school, so I made a double layer heart-shaped cake and 12 cupcakes for the kids.

I love heart-shaped cakes and I've got a great silicone pan that consistently produces beautiful heart-shaped cakes. It's not often that I get a request for it, so I was delighted at this order.

This was going to be a fondant / cream cheese challenge again but because it was going to be picked up the night before the party, I was afraid it may have to go into the fridge because of the cream cheese. There is one thing worse than cream cheese for fondant and that is REFRIGERATION. Fondant doesn't do very well in our weather but putting it in the fridge just makes it sweat and weep its colours so don't ever put it in the fridge. And since we will NEVER have Californian weather , I always just recommend air-conditioning.

After frosting the heart with cream cheese (mmmm), I placed the carved Hello Kitty on top and decided to frost it in a whiter shade of sugar icing. Then I outlined Kitty's face with royal icing to give a definitive look. The birthday girl loves the colour yellow so the cream cheese was tinted buttercup yellow for the border piping. The result is not too bad but you can see why fondant is still a favourite when you want to achieve that clean and neat finish.

Hello Kitty

Happy Birthday Joie!

I have another Hello Kitty order coming up soon and will be trying the fondant approach next.
Stay tuned for more!

The Pinks and Blues of First Birthdays

I had my hands full of pink and blue fondant over the weekend. I made TWO double-tiered cake, over two days for two cutie pies turning one year old!

My nephew Baby T had a blue cake – his mama had planned a Blue colour theme party and I proposed a layered cake with varying shades of blue!

Happy Birthday Tim

And a good friend's daughter Baby M had a pink cake - her mama planned a Minnie Mouse party and I created a delicate pink cake with Minnie mouse accents.

Happy Birthday Mere

That got me thinking... how did we come to determine gender-specific colours? While I know of some parents who rather give their kids gender-neutral clothes and toys, and I'm personally indifferent about such signifiers, there is quite an interesting background to this pink and blue business for girls and boys.

According to a Smithsonian magazine article, "The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” 

And did you know that around the time of World War I, it was generally accepted that boys wore pink and girls wore blue. Time magazine in 1927 published a sex-appropriate colour chart for boys and girls and it was pink for the boys and blue for the girls! That wasn't so long ago.

Then somewhere along the way, there was a colour swap. Maybe it was the feminist movement in the 60s that rejected any gender-defining norms, or maybe some boy really liked his sister's blue dress? Ok ok, I know all this has nothing to do with baking but it's really interesting to read, if you want to know more, check out this article at Smithsonian.com

Ok, so back to the cakes...

For Baby T's blue cake, I made a Vanilla Butter cake in layers of blue hue with cream cheese frosting in between. Both cakes were covered in fondant and I love how clean it looks.

For decoration, I tried those springy wires and made fondant stars with his name on it. They make really great cake toppers and I love how it bounces around when you move the cake.

Tim's stars

My hubby's precision dotting

A Blue Rainbow Cake

For Baby M's pink cake, I made the perennial favourite Moist Chocolate cake and the mama suggested an oreo cream cheese frosting! What a great combination it turned out to be.

Looks like giant oreo cookies

There were 3 layers at the bottom tier and 3 smaller layers at the top tier. It was covered with fondant again and decorated with Minnie mouse cutouts and pretty pink bows.

Pretty Pink

Minnie Mouse in the house!

Happy 1st